


Don't Look Back

by neilnordegraf



Category: Scott Pilgrim - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Suicide mention, child abuse mention, coming out story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-11 01:09:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5608036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neilnordegraf/pseuds/neilnordegraf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hey, fuck that guy, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Look Back

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to tumblr user ectoviolet for the title.

Stephen's never been good at staying calm.  
Ever since he was a little boy, he's always been pretty excitable, and not in a good way. He would have meltdowns before big tests and eventually had to be put on an anxiety medication.  
He can feel it working less and less every day.  
When he finally asked Joseph out on a date, it was less like a question, and more like a bunch of random syllables strung together in a way that he hoped made sense. Joseph just stared at him, until he corrected himself and asked Joseph to a movie, and Joseph, surprising Stephen, said yes.  
They've been dating for about three months, and Stephen thinks it's finally time to tell his parents. Joseph's promised him they'd do it together, since Stephen has never been good with words; but now, they're standing at Mr. and Mrs. Stills' front door, and he feels like his heart is going to jump out through his throat.  
Joseph rings the doorbell for him. When Stephen's mother opens the door, all he can do is smile, he's so nervous. “Hey, Stevie!” she squeals in that way that only moms do, and Joseph gives him a little look, like, “Stevie?” His mother smiles brightly at the both of them. “Come on in, honey. Who is this?”  
He wipes his shoes on the welcome mat, and tells his mother that Joseph is “... a friend.” And she buys it, though Joseph's hand hasn't left Stephen's back since they got to the door.  
They sit on the couch, and Stephen's mother calls his dad into the room, and asks him what he's been up to.  
“Uh, we're... producing an album. Joseph is producing it, I mean. He's a computer genius, or something.”  
“I prefer the term 'prodigy.'”  
Stephen snorts, “Thanks for the input, Joey.”  
All is well until Mr. Stills, senior, enters the room. Then Stephen's stomach does backflips.  
“Hey, Steve. And, uh...”  
“Joseph.”  
“Hi, Joseph. What are you doing here? Thought you didn't like us anymore.”  
Stephen grins just a little, a horribly fake grin. “Just thought... I should drop by.”  
His mother puts a hand on his knee as she hands him a can of diet soda – the kind he drank when he was a boy. “How's Julie, these days?”  
Stephen feels like everyone can see through him, now – like his parents' eyes are drilling holes through him, studying every movement and every breath. “Uh... w-we broke up, actually. It just-”  
“Aw, but she was so nice!”  
“I guess. It just wasn't going to work out.”  
His mom sighs. “Well, have you found a new girl? You're twenty-three, now, Stephen. Your father proposed when we were your age. We're just worried about you, honey.” I know. I'm worried about me, too.  
Stephen doesn't say anything as his mother goes on a tangent about finding a nice girl and getting married and, oh god, having children. The whole thing is horrifying for him. He turns to Joseph, and Joseph gives him a sympathetic look.  
As his mom trails off, Stephen works on mustering up the courage to say something. It takes him a few minutes to force words through the knot in his throat. “Actually, mom, I... I have been... seeing someone.”  
“Oh! What's her name? Is she pretty?”  
He doesn't look her in the eye. He's pulling a the loose strings on the hole in his jeans. “I... actually, uh... I'm- uh... I'm sort of. Gay.”  
There's a long silence. Their eyes feel like bullets penetrating his being. “What?” his father asks, quietly, but very, very firmly.  
“Joseph is my boyfriend. I... Yeah, I'm gay. S-sorry.”  
Joseph turns to him, incredulous. “Sorry? Since when are we sorry for existing?”  
Stephen's heart is racing. He feels like he's going to vomit. He wonders if he took his meds today. “J-Joseph, this... is really not the time.”  
Joseph nods, turns back to his parents, and stays silent. He's been through this before, Stephen assumes. His mother gets up and leaves the room.  
His father just stares at him. “Of all things, Stephen.”  
Here it comes.  
“You had to be a faggot.” There it is. Joseph starts to jump up, but Stephen holds him down. “I should have known when you were in high school and you did that fucking musical.”  
“Dad, it was Grease. John Travolta was in Grease. Does that mean he's gay?”  
“Shut the fuck up, kid. Get out of my house,” his father states, matter-of-factly, with no emotion.  
He gets up, pulls Joseph out of the house, and after closing the door, hears a door slam, and his father yell, “It's your fault!” His stomach churns, and he's reminded of the time he ran away in high school.

The walk back to Joseph's place is silent, but Stephen knows that Joseph wants to comfort him – he pulls Stephen's hand into his, and kisses him on the cheek. He walks much closer to Stephen than usual, as if to provide warmth for him.  
When they get into Joseph's room, Stephen all but breaks down. He doesn't know if he's ever cried this hard in his life, and it's a cold, bitter cry. He was expecting it, but it still stings. It will always sting.  
Joseph holds him close, and pets his hair comfortingly. Stephen hugs him and cries into his sweater, nearly hysterical.  
When he starts to calm down, he and Joseph sit on the bed, and Joseph kisses him on the cheek, silent and solemn.  
“It's not like I didn't expect it.”  
Joseph nods, petting Stephen's cheek.  
“I spent... twenty years. Twenty fucking years trying to impress that abusive prick. One sentence, and all his respect or love for me is gone,” Stephen laughs dryly, wiping a tear from his cheek. “He never cared about me, did he?”  
“Stephen, don't-”  
“You don't get it. When I was in high school, I ran away from home, because Mom and Dad were fighting, right? There was a lot of yelling, and he hit her, and that's why I'm a pacifist. Anyway, I just up and left with one change of clothes in my bookbag, and I slept in a slide at a playground for like a week. Nobody ever filed a missing persons' report. When I came back, he didn't even fucking notice. Then,” he hiccups, “I 'fell' off a ledge, on this weird wall at school, and broke my collarbone, and Dad never once came to see me in the hospital. I was really, uh... you know. I did it on purpose. I thought, maybe, just maybe, if I got hurt or died, I'd get some attention, you know? Nope. Nothing.”  
Joseph watches him ramble, his hand on Stephen's back, not even really doing anything. Just sitting there. Stagnant.  
“I guess that's why I want to be famous so bad, huh? Get the attention my dad never gave me. Fuck that guy, right?” Joseph shrugs, and Stephen sighs with a bitter laugh. “I guess that's what happens, right?”  
“Yeah.”  
“I bet it was easier for you. Balls of steel and all.”  
“... Not really.”  
“Really? What happened?” Stephen looks at Joseph, and his cheeks and lips are red from crying, making his eyes look that much more baby blue, and he looks so desperate.  
Joseph stares at the less-than-interesting wall opposite of him, silent. “I got sent to camp.”  
“... Like a gay camp? Where they try to train the gay out of you or whatever?”  
“Yeah. I was sixteen. My mom and dad are really religious. They sent me to camp, and I started a thing with my roommate. He wasn't even that hot. I was just being rebellious, you know? I liked the feeling of defying my parents. The counselors found out and sent me to a solitary bunk or whatever. All by myself. So I started sneaking out and vandalising the camp – and when they found out, I got kicked out, my parents were told I was a lost cause. They weren't wrong, I guess. My parents were pretty pissed off, and I got a couple of lectures about respecting authority and shit, but, you know, I've never been one for rules,” Joseph sighs and wraps an arm around Stephen. “I got sent to military school. Had to shave and everything. Luckily, a lot of the other kids there were there for disciplinary reasons, too. We would get up after lights out and camp out in this one guy, Ronald's room, and get high and drunk and all that stupid high school shit. When I went home for Christmas or whatever, I pretended like it was working, but stole a bunch of my dad's pain killers and his credit card and when I was supposed to go back to school, I drove myself, so I just went to a hotel and did drugs and shit. The hotel called my dad about it, and I ended up getting sent to rehab. I went home and acted the same as always, so I got kicked out. I was homeless for, like, six months, but I got a job and landed myself in the garbage apartment I had before Hollie invited me in. And here we are, I guess.”  
Stephen stares at Joseph. His face isn't red anymore, and his breathing is back to normal, and he's almost smiling. “That's the most I've ever heard you talk.”  
Joseph exhales, in what Stephen can only assume is the beginning of a laugh. “I think that's the most I've talked since therapy when I was seventeen.”  
There's a long silence, and Stephen lays his head on Joseph's shoulder.  
“It's weird,” he says.  
“What?”  
Stephen grins. “Thinking of you as a teenager. All young and cute. What were you like?”  
“Annoying. My beard was all patchy-”  
“Have you always had a beard?”  
“Since I started getting facial hair. Always thought it was hot. I was really thin too, and I kept my hair sort of long. I looked like Jesse McCartney and The Wolfman's ugly lovechild,” Joseph mumbles, and Stephen laughs loudly. “I'm serious, though. I dressed really stupid too. Ninety-percent of my wardrobe was brown and/or plaid. Pants were way too tight, and I always wore stocking caps because I didn't like that my hair was wavy and I wanted to cover it. And glasses. These really thick glasses with black rims. I was a hipster before there were hipsters.”  
“It's called a Beatnik, Joey.”  
“Shut up, asshat,” Joseph smacks Stephen on the arm.  
There's another silence, and Stephen chuckles. “You sound adorable as a kid. At least you weren't like a bootleg version of Kurt Cobain.”  
“That sounds pathetic.”  
“Hey, I tried. Anyway, you sound like an art major.”  
“I was an art major. Art and computer sciences. Double major.”  
“Oh, of course you had two majors. I barely got by just doing music theory. I guess I was just a terrible student.”  
Joseph sighs. “We got way off topic. My point was, you're not really... like... alone, I guess.”  
“Yeah? That whole 'it gets better' thing?”  
“... Not really. It doesn't get better. The world is cold and cruel but you can make the best of it if you really try.”  
Joseph stares off into space in silence until Stephen pipes up, “You're a real fuckin' upper.”  
Joseph snorts. “I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. In my experience, the world is terrible but your world doesn't have to be. I've just learnt to... cut out all the bad people in my life. I only have room for one bad person – that's me.”  
“You're not bad, you're... uh...”  
“Mean? Cruel? Evil? The Devil's son? I could go on.”  
“No, no, Joseph, you're blunt, I guess. You say what everyone else is thinking but is too afraid to say, I guess.”  
“That's a polite way to put it.”  
“You're also a massive jackass,” Stephen leans over and kisses Joseph on the chin. “But you're my jackass.”  
“Thanks, American Cheddar.”  
“Oh, ha ha.”  
They bicker all night, and don't have sex or even get close to it, but that's okay, because it's easy to be like this. It's nice.


End file.
